Google+, the search giant’s answer to Facebook

Jul 7, 2011 7:55 pm

Google is looking to jump into the social networking game and compete directly with Facebook. This would be Google’s 3rd try. The previous attempts included the Google Wave, a communication and online collaboration platform rolled into one package, and Google Buzz, a twitter like service that allowed sharing of videos, photos, and updates.

Google+ focuses on clean interface, and unique social interactions and connections. The simple and elegant interface was created by a former Apple designer. Google+ builds off the Google service called Profiles. Google Proilces is similar to a Facebook profile. Google+ adds in all of the social features like friending, posting, and liking that you find on Facebook with the ability to follow people like you can on Twitter.

Circles is the Google+ way of creating groups of friends that you can selectively share content with and control how they can connect back to you. Hangouts is a quick way to set up a video conference with up to 10 people while Sparks is an integration of Google’s email alerts honed down to its essence: letting you know about stuff you are interested in.